Secular Campus Group’s Office Vandalized; Group Responds

May 10, 2012

This morning the Titans for Reason,
the secular pro-science student group at California State University –
Fullerton, found their on-campus office space vandalized, apparently by a
religious individual or group.

Vice president Farah posted this to their Facebook group:

So... I walked into our office this morning and this happened in the
last 24 hours. ... Someone also used the Relay For Life
group's chalk to draw the arrow on our desk. (Update: the green flyers
are ours (we handed them out at the Ask An Atheist Day). The *additions*
by the friendly Christians are the little white flyer that is
advertising a Bible Study group, the CDs of Jesus documentaries, and the
chalk arrow pointing to the CDs)

Titans for Reason shares office space with six other student groups, none with an obvious connection to the items left behind.

What did the group do when faced with this vandalism? Farah started by sending a bold and straightforward e-mail to members of the administration:

Ms. V[-], Mr. R[-], and Mr. W[-],

My name is Farah [-], and I am an officer of the secular student's
group, Titans for Reason, as well as a student at Cal State Fullerton.
Copied on this email please find Azaadeh [-], Titans for Reason's
President. We are a new group to the campus, active since the beginning
of Spring semester 2012, unaffiliated with any outside organization, and
entirely self funded. We have had multiple events on the campus that
have been well attended, as well as multiple days of tabling. Thus far
we have approximately 140 student members, with these numbers constantly
rising. Our club absolutely espouses a "be and let be" mentality, and
has not endorsed, promoted, or otherwise encouraged any kind of "attack"
on other religious groups on campus. Quite the opposite. We have sought
to establish ties with these groups in hopes of engendering some higher
level of understanding of the diversity of beliefs (and non beliefs) on
the campus. While there have been some detractors, we have seen our
presence on the campus generally greeted with little hostility and much
discussion.

And that is absolutely what we stand for. Discussion. Understanding. And
a promotion of the idea that one's beliefs are their own.

Since the beginning of the semester, we have shared our office space
with 6 other groups. True Vine, the Iranian Student's Society, The
American Cancer Society, the Linguistics Club, Young Americans for
Liberty, and the Cambodian Students group. We have sought to keep our
desk space orderly and free of clutter, acquiesced to other groups'
requests to temporarily use our space, and generally kept the office
clean so that all others may use the space. We are highly active, and as
a result we use our office frequently. Thus far we have maintained
cordial if not friendly relations with the other clubs.

From time to time we will find random flyers and such on our desks.
Disregarding these, we generally throw them away without much
afterthought. We understand that people may put something down and
forget to pick it up. In the last couple of weeks we found that a few of
our handouts have made their way to the floor, or have been 'taken
down'. Again, we chalked this up to just the normal course of the day
and thought no further of it. However, in light of today's actions, we
are beginning to think that these actions must be placed in the context
of harassment by other individuals who may have access to this room.

Today, May 10th, at approximately 9:10am, I walked into the office to
find that our space had been, frankly, vandalized, by some individual
who clearly has strong Christian beliefs. Please see the attached
photos.

Please note that the chalk arrow would have involved using chalk
belonging to the American Cancer Society group, and as we have friendly
relations with them, we are not under the belief that they have done
this. The offending individual used another group's property without
permission.

This is a gross violation of not only our club's space, but is an
intimidation tactic. We will not be bullied into submission, and
absolutely take this event seriously. As students we have the right to a
safe environment. As a student organization we have the right to join
with others who share our beliefs. Our group does not stand for
discrimination of any kind by any individual, and further believes that
we collectively deserve the same right applied to us.

It's quite unfortunate that the rules of conduct promoted by the
Institution do not protect the rights of groups such as ours. However,
we clearly intend on pursuing this as far as it can go, and will not
under any circumstances allow religious groups on campus to erroneously
believe they have the right to do such things to us, when we have been
nothing but respectful of them. We will not be bullied, harassed, or
otherwise intimidated by those who feel that we do not deserve a voice
on campus. Bullies start small and grow more emboldened. How unfortunate
for them that we plan to quash such moves here and now.

Had we been a religious group, and a so called "atheist" group did this
to us, the School would protect us. Here, the tables are turned, and we
demand the same courtesy.

I am available via email or telephone at your convenience. I can be reached at [redacted] or via email at [redacted].

I look forward to speaking with you further,

Farah [-]

Farah let me know this afternoon that she's already received a response: "As a follow up, the director of the program for student groups took my concerns very seriously and is filing a report. They were really responsive (calling me within a few minutes of my sending the email), and receptive to our complaints."

In situations like this, I can imagine that it's easy to dismiss a student group's concerns as trivial. I can picture administrators brushing off the issue by saying, "It's not that big a deal," "Well, nothing was destroyed, right?", and "Couldn't you just have thrown those things away?" Farah's ability to frame the vandalism was excellent: she spoke about the club's open mission and demeanor, the history of flyers being put on their desk and of their own flyers getting torn down, and the fact that the group will not stand for this apparent bullying.

With this letter, Farah let the adminstration know that the group will not stand for this and demanded that the adminstration take this issue seriously. I'm glad to hear that they are.

Debbie Goddard is the
campus outreach coordinator at the Center for Inquiry and the director
of African Americans for Humanism. Before working for CFI, she
participated in local freethought groups in the greater Philadelphia
region and helped organize and support campus groups internationally as a
volunteer. She has also been involved with LGBTQ issues and progressive
activism.

Comment

Enter the word that goes in the blank: CFI is short for "Center ___ Inquiry"

The Course of Reason is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

CFI blog entries can be copied or distributed freely, provided:

Credit is given to the Center for Inquiry and the individual blogger

Either the entire entry is reproduced or an excerpt that is considered fair use

The copying/distribution is for noncommercial purposes

Sign up for Updates

Search CFI On Campus

Loading Google Custom Search...

About The Course of Reason

The Course of Reason was launched in 2010 with three main goals in mind. The first is to highlight the achievements of our student groups by regularly
posting articles on their events and activities. The second is to spread knowledge and skills needed to run a freethinking campus group by soliciting
articles from successful group leaders on organizational topics like event planning and fundraising. The last is to get students involved and experienced
in voicing their opinions on current events and relevant cultural issues.

The viewpoints expressed on The Course of Reason are the viewpoints of the individual blogger only and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoints of, nor
should they be attributed to, CFI or its affiliates, or any of their directors or officers.